Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Oklahoma Senate Defends Second Amendment

Senate BILL NO. 129 allows a person to carry loaded and unloaded shotguns, rifles and pistols, open and not concealed and without a handgun license as authorized by the Oklahoma Self-Defense Act when carried in a holster that is wholly or partially visible or in a scabbard, case or with a sling designed for carrying firearms that is wholly or partially visible and the person is eighteen (18) years of age or older.Any person who carries a firearm in the manner provided for in this paragraph shall be prohibited from carrying the firearm into any of the places prescribed in subsection A of Section 1277 of this title.

A senate committee has suggested this bill to be passed. This bill passed third reading on March 15 2011 by a 36 to 8 vote.

This bill also allows one to carry the weapon in a holster that is wholly or partially visible or in a scabbard, case or with a sling designed for carrying firearms that is wholly or partially visible to shooting sports events, military exercises, and practice for or a performance for entertainment purposes.

You may also carry unloaded weapons to and from your home, auto and for repairs, among other things. This bill is an enumeration of the second amendment of the Bill of Rights, which states that A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

In 2008 and 2010, the Supreme Court issued two Second Amendment decisions. In District of Columbia v. Heller (2008), the Court ruled that the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to possess a firearm, unconnected to service in a militia[1][2] and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home. Additionally, the Court enumerated several longstanding prohibitions and restrictions on firearms possession that it found were consistent with the Second Amendment.[3] In McDonald v. Chicago (2010), the Court ruled that the Second Amendment limits State and local governments to the same extent that it limits the federal government.[4]

In the new edition of More Guns, Less Crime: Understanding Crime and Gun Control Laws, economist John R. Lott, Jr. writes in the book’s third edition “The hypothesis that more guns connects to less crime has stood up against massive efforts to criticize it.”, Lott says, adding that “not a single refereed study finds the opposite result.”

The new edition includes data and analysis from 39 states and now covers 29 years (1977-2005). It will make it much more difficult for Lott’s critics and anti-gun groups to continue their attempts to disarm law-abiding Americans. In fact, Lott frequently turns the tables on his critics by demonstrating how their own data actually support the More Guns, Less Crime thesis.

"There are large drops in overall violent crime, murder, rape, and aggravated assault that begin right after the right-to-carry laws have gone into effect,” Lott writes. “In all those crime categories, the crime rates consistently stay much lower than they were before the law.”

From the time states passed right-to-carry concealed handgun laws, the average murder rate dropped from 6.3 per 100,000 to 5.2 per 100,000 nine-to-ten years later—“about a 1.7% drop in the murder rate per year for ten years.”

Overall violent crime rates similarly dropped from 475 crimes per 100,000 people to a range of 415-440 after the second full year that concealed-carry laws were passed. Rapes dropped from 40.2 per 100,000 people to 35.7 per 100,000 nine to 10 years later (a 12% drop).

“Of all the methods studied so far by economists, the carrying of concealed handguns appears to be the most cost-effective method for reducing crime,” Lott noted.

“Great Britain banned handguns in January 1997. But the number of deaths and injuries from gun crime in England and Wales increased an incredible 340% in seven years from 1998 to 2005,” Lott writes, identifying detrimental effects of gun bans in many other countries including India, Jamaica, Germany, Finland, and Greece.